Words and Thoughts of Joshua Scott Witsaman

Tag Archives: The Parasite

So here it is the last in our Friday Funny Pages crossover series, but it is also the perfect time to kick off a Dr. Doom series! That’s right for the next couple of weeks Friday Funny Pages will spotlight everyone’s favorite tyrannical dictator of small eastern European countries, “Doctor” Victor VonDoom. Three cheers for Doom! (As mandated by Latverian state ordinance 616B: Three cheers are to be given in response to any public mention of the name Doom or VonDoom.)

This last of the panels from the Crossover Classics starts our Doomfest with a nice little confrontation between Doc Doom and Superman himself. This image comes from the second Superman/Spider-Man team up brought to us by Jim Shooter’s words, and John Buscema’s pen. There were of course also a bunch of other names attached to this DC/Marvel crossover, like Walt Simonson and Marv Wolfman. The plot revolves around a villain brainstorm between Parasite and Dr. Doom. Superman and Spider-Man remember one another from their previous encounter with Lex Luthor and Doc Ock, so they skip the usual hero standoff and subsequent battle and get right down to helping each other out. This panel shows Superman making a trip to the Latverian embassy in Washington D.C. in order to get a few answers from Dr. Doom about some recent suspicious activity. Of course Dr. Doom, the ever prepared evil mastermind is expecting the man of steel and has fortified his embassy with features to help nullify Superman’s powers, like lead-lined walls to counter his x-ray vision and kryptonite powered laser banks installed in his office. As we see in this image Doom really has Supes by the short hairs simply by reminding the man of steel that Doom is the legitimate ruler of Latveria, and by being within the Latverian embassy he has to follow his rule. As Dr. Doom so eloquently puts it later in the story “Pitiful fool! Your vaunted strength holds no terror for me! Your hands are shackled by your own naive morality!” A good wordy smack down from a haughty supervillain is often times more fun then an epic raging brawl.

Another fun little part about this crossover is that Peter Parker and Clark Kent take part in a newspaper exchange program of sorts and get to spend some time working at the other heroe’s place of employment. Peter has a few good moments at the Daily Planet working with the admirable Perry White and putting up with the douche bags who regularly taunt naive Clark Kent. Clark on the other hand has some great moments over at the Bugle dealing with the raging madness of J. Jonah Jameson who at first was excited at the prospect of a new star reporter but gradually gets more and more pissed with the borrowed Kent who mysteriously vanishes at random times throughout the day, and seems to be a bumbling goofball. That crossover within a crossover was a really nice touch, and gave the second Superman/Spider-Man installment a completely different feel.

Anywho, now it’s time to say farewell to the crossovers and give a snappy salute to the approaching Dr. Doom goodness that will be coming your way within the next couple weeks. Until then, stay holed up in your embassies, stock pile that kryptonite, and take a few lozenges to prepare your throat to yell “Curse you Richards!” over and over again, cause Doctor Doom is coming to town, and as usual he’ll be in a surly mood!